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Famous Douglas Adams Quotes

“The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a trillion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it.”

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Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Five Novels in One Outrageous Volume
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“I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'" "What did she say?" "She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly. "I think i can confirm that was my daughter." "Sweet kid." "You have to get to know her," said Arthur. "She eases up, does she?" "No, but you get a better sense of when to duck.”

ThinkingKnowsDoeSaidI CanHelpingKidsTroubleMiddleRocksSeriousSweetPleaseDaughterMedicalForestsEaseInjuryMy DaughterDucksPrimitiveLeaving MeArthurStrandedDon't Leave MeHead InjuriesMedical Help
Author:Douglas Adams
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“The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word "Infinite". Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, "wow, that's big", time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.”

TryingLooksFactsBigsHugeOffersConceptsBiggerInfiniteSizeDefinitionsGuidesComparisonInfinityWowImmenseGalaxyStunningColossalHiker
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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“The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this. The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem. This is: Change. Read it through again and you'll get it.”

ProblemAreasCourtSentencesCriminalsMake SenseProportionGalaxyCloggingClogging Up
Book:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
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“But nowadays everybody's a comedian, even the weather girls and continuity announcers. We laugh at everything. Not intelligently anymore, not with sudden shock, astonishment, or revelation, just relentlessly and meaninglessly. No more rain showers in the desert, just mud and drizzle everywhere, occasionally illuminated by the flash of paparazzi.”

GirlLaughingRainWeatherDesertComedianRevelationsShockFlashShowersMudContinuityAstonishmentPaparazziAnnouncersDrizzle
Book:Mostly Harmless
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“One of the problems, and it's one which is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn't leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both.”

PeopleFirstsMeanChildrenProblemPartyIdiotGenesGrandchildrenBreedingSelectiveGreat GrandchildrenSelective Breeding
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts
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“He spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once you have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it.”

WholeBitsRealizingAirWindConversationBirdFairsWeightWingsCommunicateBoringSpeedFlyingGet AwayRatiosBerriesChatterTime Flies
Book:Life, the Universe and Everything
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“David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e. that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.”

PeopleWorldWayHas BeensMadeSaidDifferentBeautifulBitsSawsCoupleAreasSakeAwfulArrangementsTouristsPlaces In The WorldBeautiful PlacesBaliSortingSorting Out
Author:Douglas Adams
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“Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially.”

PeopleThinkingFactsNaturalReadyEatingEnglandRaisedWesternDespiteBoatUpsetIslandsBuyingChickensFarmsBuriedTabooBatteriesOvensThink TwiceNatural LifeBuying Something
Author:Douglas Adams
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“Just supposing," he said, "just supposing" --he didn't know what was coming next, so he thought he'd just sit back and listen--"that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn't know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I've only just met and not crash into lorries a the same time, what would you say..." He paused, helplessly, and looked at her. "I should do.”

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Book:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
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“It's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make the stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life" --she paused, and filled her lungs for a good should--"in a smelly old cave like this!”

IfsShouldLooksMadeI CanEndsStoriesDecisionQualityTakenAdviceOffersMajorsCrossesOppositesFilledJudgedDocumentsStanding OutCavesLungsQuality Of LifeStory Of My LifeSmellyLife Decision
Author:Douglas Adams
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“You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.” “Er, five,” said the mattress. “Wrong,” said Marvin. “You see?”

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Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
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“I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes, and wondered about this business of trying to teach apes language. Our language. Why? There are many members of our own species who live in and with the forest and know it and understand it. We don't listen to them. What is there to suggest we would listen to anything an ape could tell us? Or that it would be able to tell us of its life in a language that hasn't been born of that life? I thought, maybe it is not that they have yet to gain a language, it is that we have lost one.”

KnowsTryingWould BeEyeAbleLostLanguageBornTeachKnowingWiseMembersGainsSpeciesForestsApesGorillasLost Ones
Book:Last Chance To See
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